Art With An Alien
by Jeanie-luvs
Summary: In Which One Mikaela Banes Muses On Her Art Class, Her Teacher, And The Madness In His Method. Oh, And The Guns.


**A/N**: Hey all! This isn't much, just something I felt like writing. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

**Warnings**: Cursing.

**Rating**: Teen

**Word Count**: 1, 031

_***Art With Aliens***_

Mikaela had no artistic skill. Whatsoever. Did not exist. Absolutely hated art, yes she did. Why she allowed herself to be drafted into Sunstreaker's Art Class (even the _teacher_ didn't want to be in the class) was a mystery in and of itself.

Of course, there was the threat of 120 hours community service hanging over her head if she _didn't_ do it, but she digressed.

Art. Hated it. She was a Mechanic and loved it (and Sam, Ratchet, and Bee, of course).

She hated working with pencils. Her arm would drift across the page and smear whatever she was working on. Erasing was a bitch; either she didn't erase enough or accidentally got smudges on her work. If she accidentally used the wrong pencil (3B instead of 5B, oh my _gosh, really?_), then it was too dark to fix!

She _hated _charcoal. It was worse than the pencils. It was _all_ dark, dark, dark and intentionally smudgy, and _why wouldn't it stop leaving marks on her precious pristine paper?_ Gah!

She hated paint. Acrylics pissed her off. It dried too quickly for her. It all had to be done fast. She like oil paint a little better but it took _days_ to dry. Days! And, yeah, ok, it was sorta like waiting on a car, so she could be patient, but still! Not to mention every brush had to be washed out with special soap, not water alone, because ha ha, it was _OIL_ paint.

(Inks, metals, and clay suited her, so she didn't hate everything)

But most of all, she hated her teacher. Sunstreaker was loud, rude, and mean. He kept trying to teach them how to be artistic like him. He never gave any compliments but always had something nasty to say. Sure, they were learning things no one else on earth would be able to teach them (dozens of stars had been turned down when they asked to join the class), but how she _ached_ to accidentally spill something on him!

The only thing that stopped her was the rapid fear that he would not-so-accidentally kill her, despite the fact it went against his orders (Optimus had asked her to keep an eye on him; just in case). He wasn't exactly kid-friendly (Which made her wonder _what on earth the Autobots were thinking_) and he hated mouthy teens (Sam, most of all).

Not to say the students went in blind; It was posted (along with a warning label and a waiver) who was in charge. Not that they cared. Half of the students weren't exactly model citizens, including Mikaela (everyone already knew that). It was a type of, of learning-experience, or something, to make them become 'better versions of themsevles'.

Frankly, ten minutes locked in a room with him, and she already wanted to never commit another crime. And it wasn't because he was so bent on them becoming good; the threat of having to be under his 'command' was enough to deter any criminal.

He did, after all, have a glowing reputation for being a gigantic rule breaker. And a human-hater. And a pissy-bitch about his work. And a jerk. And- well, he had a lot of reputations, hardly any of them good.

There was snarling at the back of the large room, and Mikaela turned up her music to ignore it. Some poor soul had asked a question (and not all questions were bad; he just had no patience for any of them) and was now getting an answer.

Even over her music, she heard him snap, "Of course it's scrap! Your work is pitiful." Mikaela smiled. That person had gotten off easy. Some poor bastard had gotten shot at last week (he had tried to sculpt the teacher and it came out _warped_; She thought it had captured Sunstreaker perfectly). Then there had been a big to-do about what was going on, more Autobots had burst into the room with blasters drawn, and the startled students had all frozen like rabbits. It was hilarious. "Turn down that slag you call music!"

Several musical devices were instantly silenced, including hers.

Thus bringing the 'why the frag am I doing this' question back to mind. Community service sounded like heaven now. There was nothing good about Sunstreaker, except the one thing that made her get up every morning and go to class, the one thing closest to her heart.

Sunstreaker was a fantastic piece of metal.

It wasn't that she liked the Autobot (Sam was hers!). Sunstreaker had the personality of an Alligator with a constant toothache. He was simply a wonderful piece of work (yes, she meant it both ways).

From her area closest to the door (again, just in case), Mikaela could admire the sharp edges, bright colors, and sheer flawlessness of his form that made the Autobot so dangerous, without the threat of imminent death. Sometimes, she was able to catch glimpses of the intricate wiring that Ratchet was training her in, or the complexities of his structure that allowed him to move so gracefully (for a being that had to weigh at least ten ton).

Mikaela had dreams about working on that frame (and they remained dreams because she wished for a long healthy life).

Still, there was just something about the yellow of his armor, how it positively shone in the sun, yet glimmered faintly in the shadows. It was amusing, Mikaela supposed, how much Sunstreaker was "A piece of living art himself." Not that she would ever tell the narcissist-bot that.

"What was that, Fleshy?"

Oh Shit.

She grimaced. The one time she'd corrected him during roll call, he'd stared at her, optics bright blue and somehow transmitting fury. He taken the giant Ipad look-a-like, deleted her name and replaced it with that lovely title. No one bothered to correct him now, for fear of receiving a worse name instead. In fact, dozens of kids had given their condolences after that class.

Adopting a mildly innocent expression, Mikaela said, "Nothing," and hoped he would leave it alone. Another tense moment, and Sunstreaker moved on to pick on someone else. She let out a silent sigh, and pounded her clay in to shape.

To recap, she hated pencils, charcoal, paint and _definitely_ hated the teacher.

But she adored the piece of art Sunstreaker was.

_***Art With Aliens***_

**A/N:** Meh ending is Meh. Hope you liked it! Thanks for reading!


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